Circuit paths of a circuit panel presently are protected in one manner against excessive electrical load by a fuse located in the power supply. It is a known problem that in such situations the circuit panel, or one of its paths, may receive an electrical load excessive to it which could not be protected against by the single fuse of the power supply, and the entire circuit panel becomes ruined and must be replaced. This is especially true where different paths of the same circuit panel have different design in-service load-carrying capabilities receiving voltage and current from the same power supply, such as -5 volts, +5 volts, +12 volts and +24 volts so on, and 1 ampere, 1.2 amperes, 3 amperes and 0.5 amperes. Another manner of protecting an individual circuit path presently known is by using a discrete fuse such as a Subminiature Picofuse (125 V), part number 275001 sold by Littelfuse, Inc. of Des Plaines, Ill. Such a fuse has pigtail leads allowing mounting to sockets of a circuit panel. Several circuit paths could be protected by a like plurality of such discrete fuses. But such fuses are relatively large considering the trend to very closely spaced centerlines such as 0.050 inches to conserve valuable real estate on a circuit panel.
It is desirable to provide a fuse component mountable to a circuit panel to protect a plurality of circuit paths, which component is disposable and replaceable upon fuse failure after receipt of an excessive electrical load, allowing continued use of the circuit panel. It is also desirable to provide one component to protect several circuit paths having different in-service and maximum loads.